The screen printing method is sufficiently well known. Using the screen printing method, different flat materials, for example paper, plastic, fabrics and the like, are printed. For screen printing, use is made of a printing cylinder which comprises a cylindrical screen or perforated cylinder with ink-permeable openings in the entire circumferential surface or in some regions of the circumferential surface and of a squeegee which is arranged within the screen.
A printing cylinder of this type is disclosed in W0 9605058. FIG. 1 discloses a printing cylinder of this type in a printer arrangement having a pressure roll by means of which the flat structure to be printed is brought into contact with the screen. In this printer arrangement, the printing cylinder rotates continuously in the direction of the arrow X and the surface structure is moved in the direction of the arrow Y at the same linear speed as the circumferential speed of the screen. Using this arrangement, the flat structure is printed continuously with the same pattern formed on the screen cylinder. It is seen as disadvantageous that in each case a new printing cylinder has to be provided for the patterns to be printed. This results in greater expenditure in production and also in stockkeeping.
When printing flat textile structures, printing is carried out with printing repeats, each printing repeat corresponding to one image. It is possible for identical or different images to be printed at a distance from one another. In order to print an individual image, a section which is permeable to the printing medium and which is shorter than the length of the screen circumference, and a section which is impermeable to the printing medium are arranged on the printing cylinder. In a manner analogous to this, a printing cylinder with different images has a corresponding number of sections permeable to the printing medium and sections impermeable to the printing medium. In this mode, images are printed continuously at a distance onto the surface structure. As is known, this mode is used for printing labels.
During the printing of images with a printing cylinder, deficiencies can occur in the print and in the print quality, which leads to waste and consequently to a low production output.